


needing so much more than dusting

by theroadverytravelled



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast, Alternate Universe - Inanimate Objects, Disney Movies, Fluff and Crack, Inanimate Objects, M/M, neither belle nor the beast feature in any prominent way whatsoever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:54:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3893740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroadverytravelled/pseuds/theroadverytravelled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>not to give it away, but this is a tale as old as time about a clock and a candelabra in love</p>
            </blockquote>





	needing so much more than dusting

**Author's Note:**

> [carissima](http://archiveofourown.org/users/carissima/profile) gave me a prompt on Tumblr for a "lirry disney au" and this is what I managed. hope you like it!
> 
> original tumblr post [here](http://theroadverytravelled.tumblr.com/post/110712629666/lirry-disney-au).

Midnight comes and Liam has to pause in his hurried steps, as each strike reverberates through him like hammer blows, consistent and strong. It’d make his teeth ache, if he had any more teeth. The shadowy hall bounces the noise back around him and he closes his eyes as he waits it out. 

Life is quite predictable when you’re a clock, he’s found, despite the total unpredictability of being turned into a clock. His life is more sure now than it’s ever been — every hour on the hour a count of familiar vibrations, every second and minute a steady soft ticking within him. This he likes best. It reminds him of his old heartbeat. 

Not that he’d tell any of the rest that. They try and forget what they’ve lost, the curse they live with, their forms that are now wood and steel and gold and glass, instead of flesh and blood and breathing. Liam ticks now, and it is what it is. It actually helps him lead a relatively structured life, carries him through the mundane caretaker tasks he’s always had to do. 

Except of course not everyone follows this pattern. He seems to be surrounded entirely by those that blatantly spit in the face of any kind of structure, actually. And he calls them his friends. Right now he’s looking for Harry, who’s nowhere to be found as per, and Liam needs light to go do his usual rounds in the castle — a task the rest of them will never stop taking the piss about, and fair enough there are enchanted thorns and overgrown forest surrounding them, not to mention the wolves but security depends on constant vigilance, it’s the one night you don’t do the rounds that get you!

Liam toddles round the corner into the portrait hallway. The moonlight filters through the grimy windows, but he spots a small warm glow further down the hallway behind one of the heavy velvet drapes, and as he comes closer he can hear giggles and low murmurs. 

“Harry!” He throws open the drapes, exposing both Harry and Zayn, huddled close in a corner. Harry has the decency to look surprised, at least. Zayn — well, Liam’s never understood how his long eyelashes could be transposed to a paint brush, but there he is looking at him from under them, intense and a little sleepy. “So this is where’ve you been. I’ve been looking all over for you!" 

His voice sounds unconvincingly angry, echoing in the empty hallway and coming back to them hollow and thin. It’s hard to put up much bluster when he feels warm now next to Harry’s flames, the prickly edge he always feels when he walks the halls alone fading away. 

"You have found me, Paynesworth.” Harry throws a gold stem around Liam, his flames growing brighter. “And now we have a crowd!” He laughs at this, dimpling so disarmingly, looking so very human in that instance that it knocks Liam back. 

He coughs forcefully and tears his eyes away from the way Harry’s curls look tonight, wax drips shaped just so. He wonders if he’ll ever stop being surprised at how much they have all remained themselves, the same Liam, Harry, Zayn, Louis, and Niall, just hidden in these objects, these new forms. 

“You’re meant to accompany me for the rounds! I was waiting for you by the stairs. Like I do every night.” He adds that last bit as a little guilt trip, not that it works. 

“Ah Liam, ever so loyal.” Harry chucks him under his clockface affectionately, which only makes him more annoyed. “I got waylaid in a deep intellectual discussion with our friend here, and simply lost track of time. A-ha!” Liam rolls his eyes, knowing what’s coming. “I lost track of you! So really Paynesworth, I am hardly to blame for being a tad tardy for our rendezvous." 

No one quite winds him up like Harry. Just as he opens his mouth to respond, Zayn moves off from where he’d been leaning, languid, against the wall, and interjects. “Be patient with him, Liam. Someone has to I suppose, because I’m done for the night. He’s been testing out his new jokes on me for an hour.”

"Excusez- _moi_? You say that as if you weren’t having fun.” 

Ignoring Harry’s impressive pout, Zayn sidles up to Liam’s side, his bristles smoothed down and soft. “I’m off to see Nialler and Louis. They’re probably staying up entirely too late and we’ve all got to get to bed.” 

"What a piece of fine china like Niall is doing with that ruffian [Tomlinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_Disney%27s_Beauty_and_the_Beast#Witherspoon) is beyond me.” 

"I’ll be sure to pass on the message so he can answer you himself." 

"Don’t! He pecks!" 

Zayn smiles at Liam, nudging him once before loping off gracefully down the hallway. 

"He wouldn’t really, would he? Zayn’s too nice." 

"You’d deserve a peck from Louis, honestly. You’ve made me an hour late on my rounds. Come along so we can start now and not have to stay up longer." 

"Oh come now, Liam! You don’t mean that! You’d be awfully worried if I was attacked by that scamp.” They’re at least walking down the hall now, so Liam can breathe a little easier knowing he can fulfil his duty properly. Even if Harry’s throwing his stems about so extravagantly it’s hard for Liam to differentiate object from shadow as they move through the castle. Liam grabs one to steady Harry. 

“Stay still, will you! I need to see, and you waving about is making that quite difficult." 

Harry consents to this easily enough, staying surprisingly quiet as Liam leads him through the rooms, nudging his flame gently towards darker corners, and they go like this for a while, handle in stem. Soon enough the silence makes Liam suspicious and he turns to find Harry looking at him, his countenance soft with something else mixed in there that Liam can’t read. 

"Well now. If all you’d wanted from me was a romantic stroll, Paynesworth, all you had to do was ask.” His voice is low and husky, and he’s leaned in close and it makes Liam shiver, all his memories of other such nights crashing together, calling to mind other such looks because Harry can be quite predictable too, really. Never could take a single thing seriously in his life. 

“Stop it. Why you’ve got to be so distracting all the time I never —" 

"Hello?" 

They both freeze, horror mirrored in each other’s faces. That wasn’t Harry’s voice. That wasn’t Zayn’s, it doesn’t sound like anybody that lives here. They hear footsteps and scurry to the corners. 

"Dim down, Harry! Argh, careful you’re burning me!”

They manage to hide as the door creaks open. It’s a young woman, tentative and unsure and peering into the darkness. “Is anybody here? Hello?” 

“Oh my goodness. Liam!” Harry hisses, clutching Liam a little painfully. He looks unbearably excited. “A person. A beautiful person!" 

And yes, Liam can see that, even in the dim light of the moon, the red lips, the flushed skin, the thick chestnut hair. A healthy young woman by all accounts. Sweet looking. Innocent. They watch as she explores, hands reaching out to touch. This is exactly why rounds need to be done, Liam thinks, one lapse in security and they’re done for!

Harry shakes Liam until he can’t see straight. “How can you just stand here, Liam? With no thought to what this _means_!" 

"Will you shut up!” Pause. “What do you mean what this means?”

“We need to show her to the Master." 

"You’re crazy!" 

"A beautiful person, Liam. Someone to fall in love with! Someone to break _the spell_!” Harry’s eyes are wide and hopeful as he looks at Liam, his smile equally so. And before Liam can do anything, Harry lets him go and hops on over towards her, flames bursting to life. “Hello there, mademoiselle! Welcome to our humble abode!” 

***

It worked out. Harry was right. 

Liam breathes in the fresh air, hands clasped as he feels his lungs working, the thud thud thud of his heart, the sweat beading along his back as the sun beats down on him. The castle is gleaming, the thorns receded, the forest green again, and the wolves off for other lands. The curse is broken. 

The villagers are here now, helping them clean, scrub away the traces of the awful years gone. Liam sees the children of his old friends, feels a little sadness of the time they’d all lost. But he also sees Niall tearing through the crowd with a little boy on his back, Louis following after spurring on a band of other young ones. He hears their laughter from here by the gates. He sees Zayn painting flowers on the castle walls, he sees actual flowers in bloom. Everywhere he looks now he sees people. A new life, he thinks. Something to start over with, and that’s almost more than he can ask for. 

"Slacking on the job, Paynesworth?" 

Liam startles, the scythe he’d been holding clattering to the cobblestones. Harry’s come up alongside him, tall and broad shouldered, hair tousled by the gentle breeze. He smiles at Liam, open-hearted and sincere. Liam takes in his neat vest, his pressed shirt, the boots he’s wearing that are entirely unsuited to garden work, but what he thinks of is polished gold and fire. 

"I’m just kidding. I’ve come to make sure you’re not working yourself too hard. Come sit with me." 

They settle on the grass. Liam turns his face to the sun and enjoys the heat. Harry pulls out tufts of grass, scattering them to the wind. 

"It’s quite strange having fingers again.” Liam throws him a side glance. “Keep expecting to set things on fire. Keep being surprised at the feeling of things." 

Liam hums. “It was a long time. That we were — that we weren’t human.” 

Harry frowns at this, an unfamiliar expression that sharpens Liam’s focus. “We were always human. I mean…didn’t you think so? I always thought that. I always… _felt_ human, anyway.” 

"I felt that too.” Liam surprises himself, but he did. They look at each other, and Liam feels a little breathless at the green of Harry’s eyes. Everything is old and new at once, and it’s hard to keep up, but then Harry smiles and Liam has to smile back. “Maybe that’s why I miss the ticking." 

"Oh Liam.” Harry crowds in close, laying his head on Liam’s shoulder. “We’ll get you a pocket watch." 

Liam huffs a laugh. “That’d be proper strange now, but alright.” He feels a sudden surge. “We get to _be_ humans now, don’t we? We get to have lives. We get to find our own beautiful person to fall in love with. Maybe.”

There’s silence where he expected laughter and Liam clears his throat, a clammy panic rising within him suddenly. He scrubs a hand through his hair and tries not to look at Harry, but Harry reaches out and stills him, pulling Liam’s hand to his lap and interlacing their fingers. Liam has to look at him now, and Harry’s frowning again but there’s that _other_ look mixed in again, soft and something else. 

Harry opens his mouth, but closes it. His frown gets deeper. He tries again, and fails. He presses his lips together, considering. There’s sun shining on them, but Liam feels a warmth inside of him, gently suffusing through his veins. Harry’s got a halo, and Liam thinks he’d quite like to kiss him. 

Maybe. 

Harry squeezes his hand, his face relaxing slowly, just a hint of tension still in his brow. “We get to have lives.” His voice sounds far away, but his eyes bear into Liam’s, until finally he smiles. “That sounds nice.” 

Harry keeps a tight hold of Liam’s hand as he lays his head back down to Liam’s shoulder, cuddling in. In the distance Louis has tackled Niall to the ground, followed quickly after by smaller bodies, shrieking with joy. Zayn’s looking on with painted cheeks and paint stained fingers, shaking his head. Liam tries to steady the beat of his heart, and gently, gently, leans his cheek against Harry’s curls.


End file.
